Several ultra-Orthodox religious schools fail to provide students with a basic education in subjects such as reading and math, city officials found in a highly anticipated report released Friday.
The years-long investigation into more than two dozen yeshivas concluded that four in Brooklyn do not offer state-mandated secular instruction: Yeshiva Bnei Shimon Yisroel of Sopron, Yeshiva Kerem Shlomo, Yeshiva Oholei Torah and Yeshiva Ohr Menachem.
The city recommended that the state find another 14 yeshivas to be noncompliant. But education officials declined to release the details of those investigations, saying that because the schools offered certain bilingual programs and extended hours, they were subjected to an ongoing review process that ends with the state education commissioner.
Another nine schools were found to follow state law, including some lower schools that were automatically found compliant because of their ties to a registered high school.
Young Advocates for Fair Education, a yeshiva-reform advocacy group that spurred the investigation in 2015, said Friday the years-long delay in getting the city to investigate the yeshivas amounted to educational neglect — and “represents a significant failure of government.”
“A student who was in elementary school at the outset of the investigation would now be in high school. Many of the students will soon be entering the workforce,” read the statement.
“Most have been deprived of a basic education — making it exceedingly difficult to be self-sufficient. Very few have the language or general knowledge of the modern world to be able to truly navigate life in today’s world.”
Representatives from the city education department reviewed curriculum in four subject areas — English, math, social studies and science — and visited schools and met with their administrators. Most schools cooperated with the probe, but a “small number” tried to block the review, according to education officials.
Of the…
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